


seeing double beats not seeing one of you

by futuresailors



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Identity, Internal Monologue, Memories, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 15:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1947153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuresailors/pseuds/futuresailors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't the first time Steve thought that he saw Bucky in the 21st century. It was just the first time that he was right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	seeing double beats not seeing one of you

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from St. Vincent's excellent "Severed Crossed Fingers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eJMlu3X14A
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!

This was not the first time that Steve had seen a slightly incorrect version of James Buchanan Barnes wandering around in the present. Not at all. Doppelgänger sightings have occurred at least weekly since he woke up in the 21st century. Sometimes they hit him in the form of exaggerated double takes on the sidewalk, and sometimes in twinges so small and subtle he doesn’t immediately realize why he isn’t breathing. But they always happen, and they are never really the person he is looking for.

A young man in the frozen food section of the grocery store who looks so familiar from behind, but reveals brown eyes when he turns around.

A neighbor washing a load of jeans in his apartment building’s communal laundry room, whose appearance causes Steve to knock a box of detergent to the floor with shaking hands. And then to purchase his own washer and dryer.

An actor from a soap opera playing on the television in Peggy’s room, who holds his shoulders and cocks his head in a way that makes Steve jump a little the first time he appears.

(And again in another scene a few minutes later, because of course there was an evil twin).

He feels ridiculous because he should remember exactly what Bucky looks like. He has spent enough time re-watching Howling Commandos newsreels and staring at that wall in the Air and Space Museum that he should know without question. But then again, he supposes, those images aren’t quite him either; they’re copies of snapshots of a specific idea projected to the public. Steve has more accurate and personal images of Bucky, photos and sketches and letters, but it's still not the same.

He doesn’t like to think about the fact that maybe he is simply forgetting. Maybe too much time has passed to ever remember him exactly how he was. Maybe this many years were never supposed to separate two people. Maybe his mind is incapable of processing that kind of distance, and is just doing what it can to understand.

And so: A taxi driver, only briefly visible as he passes by. An extra in a local commercial. A security guard at the mall. A cashier at the pharmacy. A high school kid. A bartender. A cop.

They can’t all possibly look that much like him, Steve thinks. This is not a healthy way to view a world that Bucky does not have a place in. Just focus on remembering, he tells himself. Stop reaching, stop staring, stop imagining. No matter what you think you see, it is never going to be who you want it to be.

Never.

Until one day when, impossibly, amid gunfire and metal and smoke, it is. In the middle of the road, staring him right in the face, it is. His hair is too long and his movements are too angry and his eyes are too empty, but _it is_.

So, no. It wasn’t the first time Steve had seen Bucky in a place and time where he didn’t belong. It wasn’t even the first time he had called out his name and believed he might hear a response. It was just the first time he had been right.

(Of course there was an evil twin).


End file.
